When you’re looking for a house for crested geckos, this is the big change that the best crested gecko terrarium are usually 10 gallons or 30 gallons. But these is always a larger terrarium available out there and you may you wonder if crested gecko can place in the larger tank or not.

This post will clear up your queries, the pros and cons of larger terrariums for crested gecko, and also the recommendation on how big terrarium sizes should be.

#1 Standard crested gecko terrarium size

Reptile brands usually produce vertical terrariums in standard sizes. Normally, you are recommended too keep your baby crested geckos in 8 x 8 x 12 inches terrarium, juvenile created gecko in 12 x 12 x 18 inches. And adults should be housed in 18 x 18 x 24 inch terrarium.

#2 Is larger terrarium bad for crested gecko?

These tank size above are considered to be suitable for crested geckos. But it is not means that if you keep them in a larger terrarium, it will be too big for them. The face that if you have enough space to place a larger terrarium, I would like to recommend you use the larger one for your crested gecko.

If you’ve got an adult crested gecko, you can get a tank that is as big as you want. Because you will not know that maybe one day you will want to add more decoration or accessories in the tank and decrease the living space of your pet.

You should get the tank that is bigger than these standard sizes, 40 gallons tank is ideal to house crested gecko. You only have to ensure that tank is vertical or has at least a height of 36 inches.

#3 When is a terrarium too large for crested gecko?

Large tank is not good for crested gecko all the cases. Although bigger terrariums are still small compared to their natural habitat and they should be kept in a terrarium that larger than standard, this doesn’t apply for baby and juvenile crested geckos. A baby gecko should be housed in a 10 gallons or even smaller terrarium.

Baby and juvenile crested geckos may have difficulty finding food and water in too large terrarium and it also more difficult for you to keep an eye on your pets. They also can be scary in a too large terrarium if they cannot find the shelter areas.

The turning of the season is when the horsefly reproduces and grows. Rather than dealing with these annoyances, you can repel them using common materials from around the home.

You might be used to using horse fly repellent made from essential oils as you can easy find the recipe for this spray on internet. However, if there are not available essential oils in your home, of in case you feel uncomfortable with essential oils in your skin. You should look of the other recipe of best horse fly repellent for humans without essential oils.

This post will show you some homemade fly spray recipe with fresh herbs that you can use as an alternative to essential oils.

#1 Fresh mint herbs and citronella recipe

You will need:

2 tablespoon of chopped fresh mint herbs

6 tablespoon of finely chopped citronella. You can replace citronella to lavender, catnips or cloves.

A cup of water

1 cup of alcohol or witch hazel. You are recommended to use vodka

An empty spray bottle to store your mixture

In order to make it, heat up the cup of water with the fresh herbs in a saucepan. Cover the pan and wait for a few minutes. After boiling, wait this mixture until it cool down. Then strain the herbs out of the pan. You should squeeze out the excess water in the herb so as not to waste any of the liquid.

Adding a cup of alcohol in it and then fill the spray bottle with it. Store the bottle in a cool dry place until you are ready to use it.

#2 Vanilla extract recipe

You will need:

2 teaspoon of vanilla extract.

5 tablespoon of  water

5 oz of baby oil.

A squeezable tube

This recipe is very simple. You just need to add all the ingredients and fill the squeezable tube with it. This mixture is quite dense due to the vanilla extract and baby oil. If this formula make you uncomfortable when add in your skin, you can add more water until you achieve your desired consistency.

#3 Tips against Horse Flies

Apart from 2 recipe with fresh herbs above, you can plant some insect-repellent plants around your living space. Some plants such as catnips, citronella, and lavender will emit the scent that flies hate and prone to them.

This method is not really effective with horse fly but may help you prone to small amount of them.

If you gave you chinchillas their treats for the other days of the week, but they are doing good job, you may want to give them more treats. They are begging and they deserve another treat.

So this post is the solutions for you. You do not have to worry about give them too much treats since these treats we mention below will not only the reward for chinchillas but also good for their health. They are what you can give your chinchillas more frequently than other treats.

 #1 Dried Rose Hips

Many chinchilla owners and breeders say that it is one of the best chinchilla treats. You can offer your chinchilla every day without worrying about their sensitive digestion system. Dried rose hip is a good source of vitamin C for chinchillas. And it’s something that you can feed your chinchilla that’s a lot healthier than dried fruits or raisins.

You can easy find dried rose hips in many grocery stores. Give your chinchilla a hip each day, you should break it up and crush it down for them.

#2 Natural, untreated apple sticks

Wood chews are something you can regularly give to them, not only that it taste good, but also will help their teeth as well. Apple wood sticks are what your chinchilla will love. You chinchilla may eat the small twigs and bark off and chew the larger twigs.

Apple sticks should not be treated, glued, or painted. Instead, they should be sourced from an organically grown tree. For the best result and totally safe, these sticks should be boiled and then baked to dry before giving for chinchillas.

Aside from apple sticks, there are some woods that are safe to be offered such as Cottonwood, Dogwood, Elm, Poplar, Sycamore.

#3 Cholla Wood

Two of the best wood chews that you can give to your chinchilla are apple sticks and cholla wood. Cholla wood is great to give as treats even for young chinchillas and they can chew them as often as they can. Chollas wood will helps chinchilla trim their teeth. You also can use cholla wood to store other treats.

Just make sure that it is made of an organic, pesticide-free orchard and do not contains unknown, harmful chemicals.

#4 Bamboo

In the case that you’re struggling to find a high-quality wood that are safe and untreated. You can use bamboo as an alternative to wood. Bamboo is easier to find. You can often find a pack of bamboo chew toys online or in the pet stores.  Besides, hay for chinchillas is also a good choice to treat them.

Many people prefer to keep as pets due to their gentle nature; they are adorable and docile animals. As chinchillas parent, once you known what are the best chinchilla foods, you should also research for how often and how much should you feed them.

We are here to help you by giving you some essential information and answer your questions for the optimal chinchilla well being and maintain the healthy weight for them.

#1 How Often to Feed a Chinchilla?

If you have learned about food for chinchilla, you will know that they should not be leave alone without food for a few hours. Most chinchillas don’t have an issue with overeating, if you feed them with proper and healthy food.

Chinchillas should always have hay available. You can leave hay in their cage. Do not worry about overeating. It is only a problem if you notice your chinchilla stops eating.

Chinchillas are mostly known as active in the morning and late in the evening. So you can feed them with other food and treats during these times. You also need to change the hay in your chinchilla’s cage when it is soiled for once a day.

#2 How Much Pellets Should Chinchillas Be Fed?

There is not an exactly amount of pellets that your chinchilla should be eating. As mention above, chinchillas don’t have an issue with overeating. But in general, they should eat about 1-2 tablespoons of pellets each day. Provide them one tablespoon in the morning and one in the evening each day, you can also leave these pellets in their bowl all day.

It is essential to make sure that the pellets are always available. It is more important to maintain a healthy weight for your pets than their amount of food. In the case if you chinchillas begins to decrease their pellet of food intake or stop eating, you should discuss this with your vet.

#3 What should you do if your chinchillas do not eat pellets?

In the case if your chinchillas do not eat their pellets food, you should not switch this food. Once you know that this is the high quality and healthy pellets, stick with it.

You should found that your chinchilla is not eating is due to the pellets of an illness. The food should be switch gradually over a month time. Mix the new pellets with the old pellets in the ratio of gradual increase the new pallets.

Chinchilla is the small cute, fluffy coat animal. They can be long time companions with you, since under the proper care a chinchilla can have lifespan up to 120 years.

In the wild, they come from Chile and Peru and prefer to live in groups. The chinchilla is not a difficult pet to keep, but they also have some special requirements to tame in the enclosure habitat. Once you found the best chinchilla cage, the following step is giving them the proper cage set up.

#1 Best chinchilla cage setup

Chinchillas are nocturnal rodents; in the natural their environment is the relatively low temperature and humidity area. Since they are nocturnal, they also prefer to live in a quite place.

Due to this, in order to create the best cage chinchilla setup, you should mimic these natural conditions when housing them in the enclosure.

Chinchilla should be kept in the temperature between 55 and 70 F degrees. Any temperature above 82 degrees F could lead to heat stroke for your pets. If the temperature inside your house becomes too warm, turn on air condition.

The ideal humidity range of chinchilla is between 40-50%. Placing their cage in the dry place, not damp. Ensure that the cage is well ventilated.

The cage should be placed in a quiet area, where any noise from human activities do not bother and stress them. Do not place the cage in drafts, far away from direct sunlight, which will increase temperature.

#2 What are necessary for the chinchilla cage setup?

Bedding

Chinchilla should not live in a wire bottom cage. It is better to provide them with pine shavings, old fabrics, pellet, and shredded paper. Ensure that the bedding is completely safe and do not cause any health problem for chinchillas. It is better to choose to bedding absorbs liquids and odors well.

Water bottle

Water have to always available in the cage, so you should choose the bottle that can be attaches to the cage for the steady water supply. If you use plastic bottle, casing it or cover it with wire mesh will prevent your pets from chewing it. A hay rack and a heavy ceramic food bowl can be great ways to provide food for chinchillas.

Exercise Wheel

As you known, Chinchillas are very active. Providing an exercise wheel in the cage will help them never get bore. Choosing a durable and solid floor wheel to prevent foot injury. It is better to get a 15 inches wheel. Any smaller wheel will be too small for adult chinchillas.

Toy

Any blocks of wood and tree branches can be the toys for chinchillas that help them wear down their teeth. It is important to provide toys that do not have any part of plastic.

Whenever you feeding your fish and any dirt that built up in your aquarium would lead to the problems for your tank. To clean the tank, there is nothing better than using the best protein skimmers.

However, if you are beginners, you need to have a strict budget in mind since most aquarium protein skimmers are relatively expensive. If you’ve already started an aquarium, create a budget on what the average cost for a protein skimmer you will need to pay.

With the limited budget, you may not be able to get the extremely protein skimmer, you can still get a high-quality option on a lower budget.

These following are 2 of the best cheap protein skimmer with different features but having the same reasonable cost and efficiency: SCA-302 Protein Skimmer VS. Comline DOC 9001.

#1 Price

There are many different price levels for protein skimmers out there. If you are not ready yet to spend much of money on the high-quality and popular brand of a protein skimmer, so these two devices are an ideal choice for you.

SCA-302 protein skimmer is priced at $194 and Comline DOC is $117.99. They are not the best or highest-end equipment, they are inexpensive but you will get more value than the money you paid.

#2 Skimmer capacity

Each skimmer would come with a rating capacity about the amount of water it can handle. To get the best result, check the capacity of the protein skimmer before buying and make sure that it is suitable for your tank.

Sca-302 is the in-sump protein skimmer that will be a great choice for moderately size aquariums. It can works for tanks up to 180 gallons. Meanwhile, Comline DOC protein skimmer is the model work for smaller aquariums. It can easily handle the aquarium at 37 gallons.

#3 Features

If you are looking for the saving models, so Comline is not only cheap but also the model that would help save more on the energy bills. You will not worry about energy costs. This model also brings more powerful for its price range.

SCA-302 includes an extra-large collection cup. It also comes with a strong Atman 2000 pump, which will create great bubbles to remove the organic dissolve.

 Betta is a colorful and pretty freshwater fish. But not the same as what you see in many pet stores, Betta fish should not be kept in a tiny tank or fishbowl. You have to have the right Betta tank and provide your fish with the good condition if you want them to live the best life possible.

If you have no idea about the best Betta tank, keep reading our article since we are going to introduce to you two of the best aquarium starter kits for Betta that you should consider: Tetra Crescent Acrylic Aquarium Kit VS. Koller Panaview 5 Gallon Aquarium.

#1 Best Betta tank size

As mention above, Betta should not be kept in the small tank. You are recommended to keep them in at least 5 gallons tank size. Any smaller tank will be not enough room for Betta swim around and hide comfortably and also detrimental for the long-term health of your Betta.

Both Tetra crescent and Koller tank come with a capacity of 5 gallons, which makes them an ideal tank for Betta fish.  This size also compact enough to place perfectly in a bedroom or office.

#2 Filtration systems

Ideally, you should get a complete aquarium kit with a filter unit built-in for your first aquarium. This will ensure the success of your tank and also make maintenance much easier.

Tetra Crescent comes with a mechanical filter that pulls the water from the tank and pushes it to the filter cartridge. The sense and dual-sided mesh of the filter will work to remove the debris and waste that included in the tank. 

The filtration systems of this tank also use Ultra-activated carbon to control odors and discoloration of the water.

Koller tank provides an extremely filtration system since it offers the ability to purify the tank at a rate of 45 gallons per hour. What makes it easy to remove all the organic compose in the water. However, there are some complaints that this filter seems to be too strong for the tank capacity.

#3 Material

Tetra Crescent and Koller tank are acrylic aquariums. Although the acrylic tank is much expensive than a glass tank, it is impact resistant and much more lightweight. This will make it easy to clean and move the tank whenever you need it.

When it comes to feeding your chicken, it is important to know what is best chicken feed and how to feed them. Even when different brands of feed use the same ingredients, but the proportion will depend on the chicken age and the type of chicken.

With so many options of feed available, you could be overwhelming trying to get to know all the different labels. This post will help you choose the best chicken feed by comparing two of the most common chicken feed: Brown’s Layer Booster Feed VS. Scratch and Peck Feeds.

#1 Types of feed

Both Brown’s Layer Booster Feed and Scratch and Peck Feeds are the best chicken feeds and have received positive reviews. However, there are many differences between them.

Scratch and Peck Feeds is grits and oyster shells feed for chicken. Shell grit is a rich source of calcium that helps the hens produce strong and sturdy shell eggs. Without shell grit the hens could not get enough amount of calcium and laying a wide variety of egg oddities.

Moreover, shell grits can be store in the chicken gizzard. This will make the chicken pulverize their feed and easier digest feed.

Brown feed is a pellet, which is one of the most common chicken feeds available. Pellets are compact cylinders of chicken feed. The reasons that make pellets the first choice for a chicken keeper is that they can hold their shape, easier to store and manage than other types of feed.

Besides, if you allow your chicken to access their pellets all day, they can store the excess pellets in the crop and digest them overnight.

#2 Ingredient and Nutritional

Scratch and Peck Foods can be used for all three ages of chickens: starter, grower and layer. Its ingredients include wheat, barley, peas, sesame meal plus vitamins and supplement. It is corn and soy-free, non-GMO and organic.

If you are looking for an all-natural food source for your chicken, then this feed can be the best option that gives the kitchen the total nutrition that they need. Scratch and Peck Foods provide your kitchen with an excellent amount of fatty acids and vitamins for the growth of them.

Brown feed includes corn, soybean meal, wheat middling, and other supplements. It also includes vitamins E, A, and D-3. The outstanding point of this feed is that it uses only natural plant protein.

16% Protein and high calcium formula in Brown feed make it ideal for laying hens. However, due to its amount of protein and calcium, it is should not be used for under 18 weeks of chickens.

Reptiles are kept in the enclosure cannot be able to seek for the heat or bask under the sunlight as what we did in their natural environment. Therefore, you have to provide a heat source for them.

Not only that, but you are also responsible for maintaining the proper temperature for your reptile.

This is the reason why you should get the best reptile thermostat, which helps you keep a consistently correct temperature.

For people who have never use a thermostat before, there are many questions may come to your mind, this post will help you get to know about reptile thermostat.

What is reptile thermostat and how does it work?

A thermostat is a device that will help you control the temperature of the heat sources easily, ensure that the temperature inside your reptile’s tank always at the safest level.

There are some different types of thermostat such as on/off thermostat, dimmer thermostat, and pulse thermostat. Each type of them will have a different operation.

However, they generally control the heater by regular the power supply that the heater receives.

The thermostat will turn on/off or increase/decrease the heater when the temperature goes out of safety levels. It is identified temperature by a sensor that is placed inside the tank.

Which type of thermostat should you use?

The type of thermostat you should use depends on some factor such as the type of heater that you are using, the temperature ranger that your reptiles require. The compatibility between your heater and the thermostat is the most important aspect you should consider.

If you are using the heat pad then you can consider buying on/off thermostats, these are the best reptile thermostats for heat pad. The dimmer thermostat seems to work well with heat bulb and pulse thermostat can be used for the ceramic heater.

Can a thermostat control more than one heater?

Yes, it is. In fact, this is the safest and most effective way to use your heater. It is entirely possible to connect more than one heater or the heater and cooling devices with the same thermostat.

The thermostat will come with two sockets, which allow you to connect the thermostat and the heaters.

Guinea pigs require glooming and trimming their nails regularly. This is not only to keep them always look nice but also to maintain their health. You need to learn how to cut guinea pig nails to help them trim down their claws.

Without trimming, the guinea pig’s nails will curl around; this will make the walking of guinea pigs painful and uncomfortable.

How to restrain your guinea pig’s nails?

The most difficult part of this work is restraining your guinea pigs before trimming.  When you first do this work, this may the difficult task and have a helper hold your guinea pig will much easier for you.

But when the nails trimming turn to regular routine for you and your pet, your guinea pigs will get used to it and less squirm.

Take your guinea pigs out of their cage. Place them on your lap. They should be facing away from you.

Raise them up and stand by their hind legs on your lap. Place them with their back against your belly.  Then you can hold their feet easily in front of them.

If your guinea pigs still squirm and hard to control them, you can gently wrap them up using the light towel. Make sure that you do not wrap them too tightly and make them scared.

Or you can also relax them with the best guinea pig food, which will distract your pet and calm it.

How to cut guinea pigs nails?

If your guinea pig’s nails are light or bright pink, cutting in front of the quick. Ensure that you do not cut too close to the quick or your guinea pig can be a pain.

If your guinea pig’s nails are a dark color, you have to guess the safe area to cut based on the shape of the nail. If you are not confident, it is safest to cut down about ¼ inch from the top of the nail.

What to do if the nail bleeding

There are also some accidents that can be happened when trimming. If you accidentally cut into the quick part and the nails start bleeding.

Although the bleeding does not cause any disastrous you also have to stop the bleeding using some things such as styptic powder, corn starch, flour, etc.